Never imagined I would be disqualified

Stanford: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has said that he did not imagine his disqualification from Lok Sabha was possible when he joined politics but asserted that it has given him a “huge opportunity” to serve the people.

Gandhi, who is in the US for a three-city US tour, made the remarks on Wednesday night in response to a series of questions from Indian students at the Stanford University Campus in California. The Wayanad (Kerala) Member of Parliament was disqualified from Lok Sabha earlier this year after he was convicted by a Surat court in a 2019 criminal defamation case over his “Modi surname” remark.

In his remarks, Gandhi said that when he joined politics in 2000, he never imagined this is what he would go through. What he sees is going on now is way outside anything that he had thought when he joined politics. Referring to his disqualification Gandhi, 52, said he did not imagine that something like this was possible. “But then I think its actually given me a huge opportunity. Probably much bigger than the opportunity I would have. That is just the way politics works,” he said.